Just the Two of Us
Shortly before midnight, Shouto rose from what the rest of Class 1-A assumed was an early slumber. He dressed in silence, putting on the darkest clothes he owned to blend in as best as he could. If a UA student got caught alone, especially at this time of night, it'd be a PR nightmare for the school. And then Endeavor…
Well, Shouto decided not to think of that. He just wouldn't get caught, and then that'd never be a problem.
That attitude quickly became unwarranted: he didn't even make it down the hall without someone seeing him. Namely, someone with green hair, bloodshot eyes, and clutching a notebook in one hand and an empty mug in the other. At this point, Shouto didn't know what else to expect: Izuku got involved in everything else these days, so why not this?
"Where are you going?"
Izuku's words weren't accusatory in the slightest, but they still led to Shouto freezing up. Given the almost terrifying devotion that Izuku had regarding heroes, he likely already knew about Touya. At the same time, though, if he let slip that he was sneaking out Izuku would try and follow him, or maybe even rope someone else into the mix. For this trip to have any meaning at all, he wished to be alone.
"I don't want to get you in trouble," Izuku said. "I just want to know."
"To honor the fallen," Shouto said, the half-truth escaping his mouth with practiced ease.
Now it was Izuku's turn to freeze, the gears starting to turn. "Wait, do you mean…"
"Yes," Shouto said. That settled it, Izuku knew. At the very least he didn't look interested in stopping him.
"Do you want someone to come with you? Just in case, you know…"
Shouto waved him off. "I'd prefer to be alone, thank you. If I'm not back by the first bell, assume the worst has happened. Otherwise, I'm sure I'll be fine."
Izuku said nothing in response, but he nodded before retreating to his room. That gave Shouto little insight regarding whether Izuku had a master plan he'd decided to try and execute, but he took it as a signal to get going. Fortunately enough, he encountered no further resistance on the way out of the dorm.
From there, leaving UA's campus was simple enough. Keeping well away from the streetlights, he slipped out through the front gate without hesitation, charging into the night.
The League of Villains conformed to some stereotypes regarding sinister organizations, but not all of them. One of the expectations they bucked was that they spent almost all of their nights sleeping, just like most civilians. As Shigaraki once put it, if their operations weren't terrifying enough in broad daylight, they were doing something wrong.
None of those operations were in swing at the moment, although Shigaraki claimed they were recruiting new party members. That gave Dabi the perfect opportunity to sneak out one night for personal reasons without getting too much flak for it. Or at least, it might have been, had any attempt at sneaking out been foiled once he set foot inside the bar proper.
Despite the hour, the room was surprisingly packed. Shigaraki was nowhere to be seen, likely either gaming or sleeping, but several other members were accounted for: Toga sitting on a stool with a suspiciously-colored drink in hand, Twice and Mr. Compress having a conversation somewhere to her right, and Spinner, dressed in full cosplay, quietly reading something on his phone.
Toga noticed him first. "Where you headed?"
"Out." The League did not need to know about this, not yet. There'd be a time to reveal that and that time sure as hell wasn't now.
Toga kept pressing regardless. "You need any backup? Anyone you're going to kill? I can help with that!" As she spoke, her arms flailed around in sign language only she could understand, her face jerking between expressions every few seconds like she was watching a sped-up movie.
Dabi had warmed up a bit to Toga since they'd been introduced, but that didn't mean the girl didn't scare him every once in a while; the girl resembled what might happen if a vampire, a clown, and a case of energy drinks got thrown into a running blender, complete with all the gore that scenario entailed. She could fight with the best of them and wasn't bad company whenever murder got taken out of the equation, but you never knew if one bad day could send her on a spree that would haunt Japan for decades to come.
"I'm a big boy, Toga. I can handle myself. Besides, I'm not planning to start shit. Get there, do my thing, come back."
"Good luck, then," Toga said. "Oh! If you have to stab someone, can you try…"
"Yes, I'll try and save some blood for you, Toga," Dabi said, trying to suppress the shiver creeping down his spine. The day Toga stopped obsessing over blood was the day he dropped his grudge against Endeavor.
Before he got outside of the bar, though, Spinner added something that he really should have considered. "If you're going out and not actually doing anything, shouldn't you be disguised or something?"
Dabi and Spinner's relationship was tenuous at best, but Dabi had to concede the point there. Without Kurogiri and All For One to guide the ship, everyone else had been required to pick up the slack and use their brains every once in a while. Thus, now and again one of them would notice something obvious the others had missed, changing the course of the plan entirely and usually for the better. This time was no exception.
With that on his mind, he turned back from the bar's entrance and began putting together his outfit for the night. Despite the lukewarm temperature, Dabi assembled a disguise that covered every possible inch of skin imaginable, including the better part of his face (pun not quite intended). If some stranger saw his staples, they'd jump to conclusions far too easily and as much as Toga would love it, he hoped he could just do this without murdering anyone. By the time he'd finished putting everything on, he was a solid mass of black, complete with a ski mask (Kurogiri had insisted everyone have one when he was still around), leather gloves (apparently one of Twice's impulse buys), and even a top hat (Mr. Compress had at least five of them, he wouldn't miss this one).
He looked ridiculous, but with the rise of mutation Quirks, few people these days bothered asking questions about strange outfits. He doubted anyone would stop to chat with a masked stranger like him, and that was the important part.
"Sekoto Peak." No point in lying about that: if Shigaraki didn't have some kind of tracker on him to weed out double agents, he'd take up pacifism.
Toga smiled. "Sounds interesting. Any reason?"
"I need some fresh air." Sometimes, the simplest excuses were best.
"Isn't that a bit far? Long walks are the best!" Twice added his two cents.
"Thanks, Twice," Dabi said, marching past him without making eye contact as he headed for the door.
"You're welcome! Fuck off, you're the worst!"
Without another word, Dabi slipped into the deepening night, charging straight towards his destination like it'd vanish tomorrow.
Shouto took a taxi to his destination, or at least as close to it as possible. Even if the buses ran at this hour, which he didn't know for certain, it'd be far too easy for him to get noticed. He didn't need any stalkers, and he wasn't in the mood to answer questions either. If the taxi driver knew who he was, he didn't say anything about it, the drive occurring in silence.
The taxi came to a halt at an anonymous curb across the street from his destination. Shouto paid the driver, watched him go, then crossed the street, not even bothering to look for a crosswalk. He still had some walking to do, but for all intents and purposes, he'd gotten to where he needed to go; the accompanying sign announcing his location's presence had begun to fade and rust with time, but it still stood tall and proud.
Sekoto Peak. Where everything started. Where everything ended.
Technically it was closed to the public at this hour, but at the same time, he doubted anyone was going to bother him about that once he entered. He saw no one as he strode through the overgrown woods, the trees blocking out all but slivers of the sky, the moon popping out for a few seconds at a time before disappearing just as quickly.
The hike to the actual peak in question took less time than Shouto remembered, although maybe he'd just gotten stronger since the last time he'd done this. Before long, the top of the mountain neared, and with it came the memories.
Endeavor had pulled a few strings following Touya's death, which allowed for his grave to be marked just below the peak of the mountain. When it was first erected, it stood out as the lone monument on a desolate hillside, but every year it got just a bit harder to find as the local vegetation recovered, looking more and more like the… incident never happened at all.
Once he got close enough, though, it became clear finding the gravestone wouldn't require the same level of searching he'd gotten used to. As the inky blob in front of him took on a definitive shape, one idea rang true: he hadn't been the only one who had come to pay their respects tonight.
The figure kneeling in front of the grave was dressed in all black, just like him. The top hat looked a tad strange, but other than that, he resembled someone who'd come to mourn the loss of someone dear to them.
Shouto approached them with a bit of trepidation. The person was too small to be Endeavor, and Natsuo and Fuyumi would have texted him if they'd planned to come here. Few others knew of the significance of this location, and none of their names came to Shouto's mind at the moment. So who was this?
Before he got close enough for any definitive features to come into view, Shouto stepped on a twig like he was trying to reenact a lowbrow horror movie, breaking it with a snap that echoed through the woods. The figure in front of him flinched and rose to its feet, back still turned. Shouto assumed they meant no harm, but he prepared to drop into a fighting stance just in case.
After a long pause, the figure turned around, apprehension prevalent in every motion. His eyes met Shouto's.
Then Shouto saw the ski mask and the hints of purple around his eyes, and any hope for a peaceful excursion shattered then and there.
Dabi's gaze remained locked with Shouto's for a long, long time, the former cursing fluently under his breath and the latter remaining silent and still.
Of all the people he could have run into, it just had to fucking be Shouto. The only person who might have been worse would be Endeavor, and at least with Endeavor, he had a contingency plan to do everything in his power to turn him to ashes. While Shouto looked like a rapidly rising threat to the League of Villains and everything they'd planned, Dabi couldn't subject him to the fate he had planned for Endeavor. Being a villain was one thing, being a hypocrite was a whole different beast.
Once Dabi's cursing died off, neither of them immediately addressed the other. The tension kept building and building, the two of them keeping silent as if daring the other to speak first.
Eventually, Shouto rose to the occasion. "I'm not licensed yet, but I'm supposed to call someone who is. I suggest you walk away before that happens."
"You're lucky I'm not trying to kidnap your ass," Dabi retorted, no flames for now but the ambient temperature rising rapidly. "You know how happy Toga would be if she got to take your body for a test drive?"
"I hope she realizes that I'm a minor," Shouto said, the implications of that whacking Dabi upside the head and sending him reeling.
"Oh, fuck off. We're villains, not monsters. None of us will ever stoop that low."
That statement led to another long stalemate, neither of them willing to give the other an inch. Once again, Shouto lost that battle, asking what had to be the million-dollar question at this point. "Why are you here?"
Given the underlying circumstances, Dabi saw no point in lying about that. "The same reason you are, probably."
Shouto stiffened noticeably, Dabi's best guess being that he needed some time to comprehend that villains could have loved ones. The number of extended pauses in their conversation was starting to get a bit ridiculous, but Shouto didn't seem to care, taking a solid thirty seconds to work up the nerve to speak again. "Wait. You knew Touya?"
Dabi had a million potential responses to that. Did he just reveal the truth and try to recruit Shouto as the newest member of the League of Villains? Did he pull out a big, fat whopper of a lie to keep Shouto blissfully unaware? Did he change the subject and drop the conversation entirely? Did he suck it up and start attacking, or even cut his losses and make a break for it?
One look at Shouto's face and he did none of those things. Neither side had any malicious intent and unless Shouto decided to try and pull something, Dabi would prefer to keep things that way.
"One might say that Touya and I were pretty close."
Dabi knew Touya.
A simple revelation. A passing detail with little relevance to the world at large. A plot twist that would have been scrapped for being too trivial. Yet, it still grabbed Shouto's attention and refused to let it falter, every little motion Dabi made further sucking him in.
He should get pro heroes involved, he really should. But that meant unless Hawks beat him here Endeavor would probably be the one on the scene, and that spelled disaster in great big flaming red letters. Half of Tokyo might burn down before he decided to call things off, and Dabi would never call things off.
Thus, his phone remained in his pocket as Dabi continued to speak.
"We knew each other for longer than you might remember. All I can say is that it took me far too long to realize that something was seriously wrong with his life."
Shouto kept his expression impassive, but he agreed there. All four of them (including Endeavor) were various degrees of messed up, although how that manifested changed from person to person.
It looked like Dabi was really getting into this, since he kept getting more and more animated with every sentence, steam rising from his hands as he waved them about. "I never knew the full extent of what he went through, but just based on the pieces I picked up, it looked like a lot. Like, more than one human being should ever have to go through in their lifetime."
Dabi likely didn't know half of it, but Shouto nodded anyway. While he didn't remember much about Touya's 'training sessions,' what little he did remember strongly resembled hell for a multitude of reasons.
"Then, he died. Just like that. Everyone knows what happened and no one did a damn thing to hold Endeavor responsible or at least make sure shit like this couldn't happen again. Apparently, being a hero means you're above the fucking rules. No one seemed to care that the pillar of society had the blood of a child on their hands. Why even bother trying?"
That just meant another strike against Endeavor. It meant little when the game was already over but it still had to count for something.
"Anyway, that's why I'm here, and I'm sure I can figure out why you're here without any backstory," Dabi said. "Everyone knows."
Shouto shared nothing else, since Dabi was right about that: fewer people knew about the circumstances but everyone knew that Touya had died and that it affected the entire family afterward. While at this point he doubted Dabi had much in the way of ill intent, giving the rest of the League of Villains anything they could use was something he'd prefer to avoid if possible.
Then Dabi decided it'd be the best time to ask what may have been the dumbest question he'd ever heard, and that included the stuff Kaminari said after his brain shorted out.
"Would you care to join me?"
The words tasted sour as they left Dabi's mouth, the sign of a question he really shouldn't have asked. Taking it back at this point would be even stupider, though, so he kept his mouth clamped shut as he waited for an answer.
Dabi at least expected a pause for Shouto to weigh his options. He got nothing.
"I can't," Shouto said. "I'll never be you and I don't want to be you. Just because I'm working within the system doesn't mean I can't change the world for the better. And if I have to burn down the world just to maybe make something a little better out of the ashes, what makes me any better than—"
Steam very nearly began erupting from Dabi's forehead and both his hands ignited, ironically setting himself up for a repeat of the very incident that brought them here in the first place. "Don't you ever compare me to Endeavor. I may be many things, but I will never sink to the same level as him."
"You kidnapped my classmate and tried to kill him," Shouto said. "What makes that any less depraved?"
"He was meant to be either a new recruit or bait for All Might, and the second we let him loose he tried to blow us to kingdom come. Also, we didn't do anything to hurt him until he attacked first."
"I don't care what your reasoning is, heroes don't kidnap people," Shouto said. "I can be a hero without becoming my father."
"Becoming a hero is just supporting him," Dabi hissed. "It's just another person he can say he's better than because of a stupid number. I'm not playing into that bullshit."
This argument likely would have continued until the end of time, or at least until the park opened to the public again and someone else saw them. However, in the brief pause between one sentence and the next, Shouto spoke out to shut off any further statements that Dabi could make.
"We're not compatible," Shouto said. "When we meet again, it's going to be on opposite sides of whatever plan you and your allies are creating. And when that comes, I won't hesitate to bring you down."
It felt like there was nothing else to add, but after a few seconds, Dabi put together a coherent response.
"For once, I agree," Dabi said, the gears in his brain turning. The best-case scenario hadn't materialized: Shouto and he would stay apart. However, at the very least, he could verify that Shouto had no love for Endeavor either. While Dabi had no idea if Shouto wanted to take down Endeavor as well, if he did, at least they'd share a common goal. They wouldn't be close, but at least they shared a common goal.
That led rather nicely into their most pressing concern. "Are you going to leave me the fuck alone?"
"I'm going to pretend I never saw you," Shouto said. "Getting the pros involved means Endeavor's the first one out of the gate, and I doubt either of us will like that. You can take your turn, I'll take mine, and then we can go our separate ways and hope that's the last we see of each other."
"What if someone sees us together?"
"We'll deal with that if it happens."
Something had to go right during this trip, fortunately enough. Both of them were left to remember their broken pasts in peace, their alliances forgotten.
Shouto returned to UA well inside of his imposed deadline: the moon still sat somewhat high in the sky and the stars still shone as brilliantly as ever. With luck, he might even be able to sneak in a power nap before classes started for the day, so long as he reached his room without any interruptions.
As it happened, history decided to repeat itself: namely, before he reached his room he once again ran into a tired-looking Izuku, who held a notebook in one limp hand.
Before Shouto could ask the obvious question, Izuku gave him the answer he needed. "I had to use the bathroom and got lucky. That's all there is to it."
There wasn't anything he really needed to or even wanted to say right now, so Shouto decided to retreat to his room before anyone else decided to ask questions. However, before he got past Izuku, he started speaking again. "I'm sorry, Shouto, but I have to ask: is everything okay?"
Time to attempt dodging the topic. "Why are you asking?"
"Uh, you have ice on your face…"
Shouto raised his hand to touch his face, and sure enough, on the side with white hair, thin streaks of ice had formed, starting just below his eyes and ending with icicles extending off his chin in some pale imitation of a beard. They began melting as he ran his finger over them, but the damage had already been done.
"It's not a big deal, you don't need to tell me anything," Izuku said.
With a deep breath to summon whatever resolve he had left, Shouto chose to defy that statement. The odds of Dabi not sharing the full encounter with the League of Villains were slim to none, so Shouto decided to do the same if only for the sake of evening things out. Thus, over the next few minutes, he told the full story, or at least as much of it as he could bring himself to reveal. By the end of it, he was starting to shake and Izuku had about half a page's worth of new notes to add to his collection.
"Don't worry, I don't plan on telling anyone else about this unless you give me permission," Izuku said. "I'm sure a lot of them know about Touya, but…"
"Stop," Shouto said, his voice raw. He knew where the rest of the sentence was going, and he wasn't falling off that cliff. Not again. "It hurts. It hurts and it's never going to stop. I don't need to drag everyone else down with me."
"Don't worry," Izuku said. "I know my classmates, and I'm sure you do too. They'll stick by you. I know I sure will."
Shouto knew Izuku was right, but that didn't make the ache in his chest burn any less. All his classmates would provide all the well-wishing and empty platitudes and attempts at support someone could ask for, but none of them could fill the hole Touya left. Not now, likely not ever.
Leaving Izuku behind, he slunk back to his room, closing the door behind him as he crawled back into his bed.
For the sake of his classmates, and himself, he had to keep it together. He meant what he said: the rest of the class didn't need to suffer because of his problems.
There'd be a day when he could move on, but it had yet to arrive.
Surprisingly, when Dabi returned, he found someone else in the room: Shigaraki was either pulling an all-nighter or just couldn't sleep to begin with. He stood in the spot Kurogiri used to occupy, polishing a glass that looked pretty clean already. Some kind of coping mechanism, perhaps? He knew about those, that's for sure.
"Your walk took fucking forever," Shigaraki said. "What the hell happened? Did you kill someone while you were out or something?"
Dabi decided to spill, just in case Shigaraki had some plan that he could enhance with the knowledge he'd acquired. "You wouldn't fucking believe it, but I ran into one of the UA brats."
Shigaraki almost leaped over the bar in surprise. "Was it the kid we captured?"
"Not that one, thank fuck," Dabi said. "Endeavor's scion, not like that's much better."
If he didn't have Shigaraki's attention before, he did now. "Holy shit, how are you still alive?"
"Got him talking. Turns out he doesn't hold Endeavor in high praise either. He'd definitely be the first one to show if the pros came around and neither of us wanted that to happen, so we just went our separate ways and pretended we didn't see each other."
Shigaraki almost looked impressed. Maybe it hadn't gotten into his head that while most heroes were good people, just about everyone had their secrets and their vices. Heroes and heroes-in-training were no exception there.
Before Shigaraki could drag him into a conversation that might last until morning and leave him deprived of sleep and angrier than usual, especially with all the stuff he needed to process, Dabi decided to cut off any potential avenues of continuation. "Unless there's something vitally important you need to tell me, give me a couple hours, okay? I need some time to sort all my shit out, and maybe sleep a little while I'm at it."
"Must be a big fucking pile of it," Shigaraki said, a smirk in his voice that made Dabi want to punch him in the throat. He couldn't, though: as childish as he could be sometimes, Shigaraki was the closest thing to a chief strategist the League of Villains had, meaning he also represented his best shot at knocking Endeavor down a few pegs. He had enough sense to keep things that way.
Even if he could still cry, he wouldn't have: ever since he'd been reborn as Dabi he'd grown too jaded for that.
But nothing stopped him from grieving what he'd left behind: his childhood, his identity, his siblings, all that he'd lost in the fire that killed Touya Todoroki.
There'd be a day he might come back to life again. For now, though, it was all Dabi. And as long as he was alive, Endeavor needed to watch out: his judgment was coming, and soon.
This is what happens when I binge hard on Dabi-centric fanfics for a few days: I decide to try and write one of my own. Hopefully, it turned out decent.
Thanks for reading this story, and I hope you enjoyed it!